Ban reggaeton

I haven't heard much uproar about this from the hip-hop community, but I read somewhere recently that the reggaeton station in New York has overtaken the hip-hop station in the ratings. This would seem a rather monumental development, no?

In the past few years, reggaeton stations have actually replaced modern rock stations in cities with significant hispanic populations. I recall there being a bit of a stink over this in Philadelphia, but it can be difficult for anyone to pretend they give a fuck about rock music (other than the ur-fashionable indie rock) these days.

In fact, many modern rock stations these days have been reduced to becoming a sort of "classic rock of modern rock" stations. Granted, it's kinda cool to get in your car to go grab a sixer and hear Alice in Chain's "Rooster," but when it happens more than once in a week, it's like, "Whoa, what the fuck's going on here?"

I'm sure kids felt the same way in 1980.

If this reggaeton garbage can knock rock music off the radio, what's there to suggest it can't replace hip-hop as well? After all, kids who listen to rock music spend more money on soda than hip-hop kids, right? And wouldn't reggaeton, which incorporates elements of hip-hop seem a more natural replacement for hip-hop than anything else?

In a city like New York, where half the black people are actually hispanic anyway, who would even give a shit?

I was in New York last year and let me tell you it sucked balls. To be sure, people in every city in this country complain about the radio, but New Yorkers might actually have a point. They really do play the same five songs over and over again out there. I heard that one Mariah Carey song like 300 times, and I barely listened to the radio.

What was worse was when they would bust out into some awful reggae or reggaeton, which happened about every other song, even on the so-called hip-hop station. As if there wasn't enough reggaeton on the actual reggaeton station. It could be that the TIs at Clear Channel are trying to gradually wean New Yorkers off of hip-hop.

That song "Can't Satisfy Her" by I Wayne, a true abortion in musical form, may have been the most popular song that week that wasn't by Mariah Carey. You could hear that garbage on every filthy-ass street corner. Interestingly enough, I haven't even heard that song once since I was in New York. Viva la midwest!

Mexicans (er, hispanics) have only recently outgrown blacks in terms of population. Given the rate at which they reproduce, they could outnumber blacks by orders of magnitude as recently as, I don't know, tomorrow? In most of the country there was no such thing as "the hip-hop station" as recently as 10 years ago. What's there to suggest that there will 10 years from now?

Hip-hop has already fallen into quite a bit of a rut creatively - the kind genres fall into once they officially stop mattering. Once it stops becoming as much of a commercial force, I wouldn't be surprised if it became highly margianilized at the very least, if not kicked off the radio entirely by reggaeton. If they let it happen to rock, you best believe they'd let it happen to hip-hop.